A combination of foresight and great sales work has brought pumps and mobile telephones closer together.

Almost everybody has one. Some people have several. But not many of us know that Grundfos is actually involved in the production of many new mobile telephones, albeit on a small scale.

By engaging in targeted activities within the machining industry and with the establishment of several new competence centres, Grundfos has taken a great leap into the mobile telephone market and is today the world’s biggest supplier of pumps to this industry with customers in the automotive, aviation and IT sectors.

Difficult start

However, the journey has been anything but hassle-free before Grundfos got to this point.

In 2008, when setting up three test centres, Machine Tool Business Competence Centres (MIBC), in Asia, Europe and the US, the market was dominated by relatively few great players and therefore seemed like a good place to start.

But as soon as Grundfos opened the centres, the financial crisis set in.

The machining industry was hit hard, and sales dropped by a massive 55 per cent in 2009 in comparison with 2008.

Crisis exploited

Instead of discontinuing its activities, Grundfos spent the time consolidating the newly-opened MIBC centres.

And this preparatory work has definitely paid off. The crisis is now improving, and Grundfos is presently far ahead of our competitors – and with even better results than two years ago.

Grundfos has been had particularly successful in strengthening our general expertise and know-how within the machining industry and focusing on collaboration across the MIBC centres.

Breakthrough in precision mechanics

The initiative gained momentum at the beginning of 2010. In Japan and China, large orders were won on pumps for moulds for the electronics industry, for example.

Another major customer was the company Foxconn Electronics, which delivers parts to several big IT companies.

Among the customers in the IT industry in particular, Grundfos’ tradition for precision is greatly appreciated.